Games Industry Transitions In 2013: Will Consoles And Windows Rise Again?

Games Industry Transitions In 2013: Will Consoles And Windows Rise Again?
techcrunch.com

First, title is misleading. Reads like a state of the state to me.

Second, "Can console makers really continue as they have for years, releasing updates only every once in a while and dealing exclusively with preferred developers?"

For the former, I sure hope so. The more time goes by the better quality the games tend to be. Instead of gimics to test the system they know what's good and they use it.

For the latter, I suppose he's referring to indie developers, but I read an interesting article elsewhere that mentioned that no one is releasing sales numbers (save the big winners) which leads to the suggestion that you can make more than you do.

Also interesting was his talk about the WiiU; made me think his answer was going to be 'no' instead of 'who knows, we'll have to see.'

(Betteridge's law of headlines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...)

2013 aside, as someone who works at an mobile game startup, all of us believe that the future of video gaming truly is mobile.

Just think of this: within three years the iPhone and Android-phones will likely be more powerful than the Xbox360. Give another generation and they will likely be more powerful than the PS3. They already boast more features (geolocation, social integration). At that point, we may well be hooking up our smartphones to a larger screen to play our "console" games.

I looked into the key map preferences file, and it's fairly clear how the key mapping is implemented in the game: the defaults are hard-coded in, and "mapping" is implemented by basically having a search-and-replace filter on the incoming key stream. It's no wonder there are bugs; it seems that not all places that check for input run the input through the filter. What's missing is an indirection between the concepts of a keystroke and a command.

But the particularly revealing thing was when I went onto the Ubisoft forums to discuss the issue. The forum for Far Cry 3 Console has about 15x as many posts as the Far Cry 3 PC forum.

If revenues are similarly lopsided, it would explain why the PC version - the HUD and input system in particular - is such a crappy console port. It's because PC players are an afterthought, a minor bit of loose change to pick up after the bulk of the market has been addressed.

And in turn, the PC experience, from opening the box to getting the game running, is so unpleasant it turns more and more gamers away from the platform. It's not available on Steam in the UK, so I got the package in the mail. Ubisoft didn't even use proper plastic for the DVD box, it's all floppy and squeezable, like the plastic used for tomato ketchup or mayonnaise bottles. Ubisoft did almost everything they could to show their contempt for PC players.

So I am not optimistic for the future of PC games.

There's also entrenched franchises on consoles. Activision doesn't want to make Call of Duty for iPhone - $60 is a bit more enticing of a price point than $1. That's not to say they won't maybe make mobile versions in the future, but certainly not versions intended to replace the console versions (similar to how handhelds already have had CoD spinoffs). And that's just one example, of course.

I don't think you're necessarily wrong on where the market's going, long-term. But I think that it is a long term, at least ten years or more, until we see consumers saying "why would I buy an when I already have an iPhone and AirPlay?"